Husky Huddle: Are all UConn Sports Championship Ready?

Nick: Hel­lo, every­body. This is husky Hud­dle. My name is Nick, and I’m joined today by olivia, Kwasi, and matt. Today we’re going to be touch­ing on a few UConn sports, some, on cam­pus, some, off cam­pus. It’s, been a good fall for the Huskies. A lot of hot teams, a lot of good per­for­mances, and a lot of good sto­ry­lines. So, get ready. Strap in. We’re going to be talk­ing UConn sports, and we hope that you’re ready for today’s episode. All right, Matt, we’re going to start with UConn foot­ball. Tell us a lit­tle bit about what Jim Moore’s team has been up to.

Matt: So they’re two and two to start the sea­son, and at home at run­ches­ter Field, they’re two and zero. so that pos­es a ques­tion. Because of their recent suc­cess ear­ly on at home, would that poten­tial­ly lead to big­ger stu­dent turnout at foot­ball games?

Kwasi: No. UCon­n’s the bas­ket­ball cap­i­tal of the world. These are things that we know back to back cham­pi­ons. Now, there’s oth­er sports that are all also d one, but espe­cial­ly when it comes to foot­ball, it’s like, peo­ple real­ly hold on to those ear­ly two thou­sands teams of, like, oh, that was like, the mec­ca of, like, UConn foot­ball. Those were, like, the glo­ry days, and it just has­n’t real­ly been the same since, like, 2000, 920 ten. And in order to get back to that, like, lev­el, they need to either join a cer­tain divi­sion of foot­ball. There’s rumors that they’re going to join the big twelve. There’s rumors that they’re going to go ahead and join the Big ten. Even so, right now, they’re just FBS, inde­pen­dent. And that does­n’t real­ly allow kids to want to com­mit to your school. The only school that real­ly works, Notre Dame. But oth­er than that, there’s no rea­son why some­one com­ing out of high school would be like, oh, I want to go to UConn for foot­ball. That does­n’t real­ly make sense. Peo­ple go to UConn for almost any oth­er sport on cam­pus. We’re gonna talk about oth­er sports that are doing just as well right now. But for foot­ball, it’s like, it’s get­ting bet­ter, but, like, for the last, like, five to ten years, it just has­n’t been look­ing too hot.

Olivia: I think there’s a lot to be said, though, about how much Jim Mor­ris changed it in his third sea­son. Now at UConn, he said back in July that he knows Con­necti­cut is such a pow­er­house for sports, and he does­n’t want the foot­ball pro­gram to be left behind. And I feel like he’s done a real­ly good job. We qual­i­fied for our first bowl game his first sea­son. Maybe it was his sec­ond sea­son, if I’m remem­ber­ing incor­rect­ly, but he’s done a lot since com­ing, and I feel like there is a lot to be said about what he’s done. And I think back to what Matt men­tioned ear­li­er, I think stu­dents are tend­ing to go more. I think it being in Hart­ford is prob­a­bly one of the big­ger things that makes it more dif­fi­cult. Cause no one wants to ride a school and bus to Hart­ford. But I feel like stu­dents are kind of get­ting more into it, espe­cial­ly if they are doing a lit­tle bit bet­ter, espe­cial­ly at home.

Kwasi: You know, let’s just touch on that, like, real­ly fast. If they were to build a sta­di­um on cam­pus, do you think the best spot would be for that sta­di­um? Like, just like any­body. Like any­body. If any of you guys want to answer that, I’m still curi­ous about it.

Nick: It would have to be close to the oth­er ath­let­ic facil­i­ties. I would have to think. I don’t know if they have any more open land over there where they can build a new sta­di­um, but I know they have that, field. I believe it’s a prac­tice facil­i­ty behind that park­ing lot that’s between hill­top, and kind of like the school of busi­ness cam­pus. That could poten­tial­ly be a sta­di­um. Would it be the best sta­di­um? I would say prob­a­bly not. So that’s prob­a­bly why they stick to Hart­ford, try to get a big­ger draw, try to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble. But, even in Hart­ford, we see that uConn, foot­ball still is not pulling in the biggest crowds. the stu­dent sec­tion isn’t always filled up, so still some work to be done. But, in terms of an on cam­pus loca­tion, it’ll be hard in stores.

Kwasi: Have you guys been to foot­ball games at all?

Nick: I went to their game against Mer­ri­mack. When they beat them, it was like 58 to 14 or some­thing like that. So it was a blowout. But even then, the stu­dent sec­tion was full for the first half, but emp­ty in the sec­ond half. So we’ll see what it takes for UConn to actu­al­ly fill out the stu­dent sec­tion. If they’re play­ing good and fans aren’t there, it’s prob­a­bly not the best sign.

Kwasi: That’s it. I’ve nev­er been to a foot­ball game, so it’s just like, for me, it’s like, I don’t real­ly have. It’s not real­ly a lack of inter­est. It’s just the fact that it’s like the entire four years I’ve been here, just like, they haven’t been that good. And in order to get peo­ple to go to your foot­ball games, you have to show invest­ment into, like, you have to, like, spend mon­ey to get mon­ey. Not, they’re like, not that they’re spend­ing mon­ey on, like, get­ting kids to come to col­lege, even though they tech­ni­cal­ly are, but that’s besides the point. It’s just the fact that it’s like, in order to get, like, peo­ple to go to your foot­ball games, you need to be able to show that you care about foot­ball in that regard the same way that they care about bas­ket­ball. It’s like bas­ket­ball gets packed out, like, every sin­gle year, and it has been that way for, like, three decades. And that’s just because every­one loves UConn bas­ket­ball. And the Yukon bas­ket­ball teams, both men and women, are both so good. So it’s like, if I’m gonna go to a foot­ball game, I don’t want to see the team just go, like, maybe like six and nine over the course of the entire sea­son. I want to see them be able to, like, you know, I’m not try­ing to say, like, they have to be win­ning nation­al cham­pi­onships, like, right away. Cause, like, those things take time, but you got­ta be able to just show that you care about foot­ball and show that the pro­gram can­celed. I see, like, a lit­tle bit of a turn­around for sure, but it’s like, it’s gonna take, like, a cou­ple years for sure to be able to

00:05:00

Kwasi: see that stuff actu­al­ly, that come to fruition.

Nick: Yeah. Olivia kind of hint­ed at this ear­li­er. Ever since Jim Mora, took the head of the team a, cou­ple years ago, the team has def­i­nite­ly been trend­ing in the right direc­tion. she said his first year, they qual­i­fied for a bowl game. That was their first time in quite a while. the team has been talk­ing about join­ing the big Twelve or the Pac twelve. I for­get exact­ly what con­fer­ence. The big twelve. if that were to hap­pen, I think it would def­i­nite­ly give the team some more direc­tion. give fans some­thing to cheer for, prob­a­bly kind of like the Big east. is basi­cal­ly the basis of UConn bas­ket­ball sched­ule. That’s kind of what hav­ing a con­fer­ence would do for foot­ball. So if that were to hap­pen, I think that’d be huge for the team. We’ll see where those talks go. But right now, they’ve kind of stalled.

Matt: And to Nick­’s point, in that recent game against FAU, in those 421 rush­ing yards, 156, there were two play­ers that had 156 rush­ing yards each, and that was run­ning Bell, Ter­rell Robin­son, and run­ning back Mel Brown. So it’s safe to say, like Nick said, that with Jim Moore, UConn foot­ball is devel­op­ing their tal­ent, and they’re kind of build­ing their foun­da­tion that, you know, could poten­tial­ly lead to more suc­cess in the future.

Kwasi: Do you guys think UConn foot­ball is going to get good, like, with­in the next, like, any­time soon­er at all?

Nick: I think they’ll get bet­ter. I don’t think they’ll be one of the con­sen­sus best teams in the nation.

UConn vol­ley­ball is unde­feat­ed in non con­fer­ence play with a 120 over­all record

I don’t think they ever will be one of the con­sen­sus best teams in the nation, but that does­n’t mean they can’t be com­pet­i­tive and fun to watch.

Kwasi: All right, for sure. Maybe we could move on now, and you guys should just, like, edu­cate me on UConn vol­ley­ball, because I see that they have a 120, over­all record. It’s the best start in pro­gram his­to­ry. I per­son­al­ly don’t watch a lot of vol­ley­ball col­le­giate­ly any­way. I watch Olympics, obvi­ous­ly, like beach vol­ley­ball and then reg­u­lar vol­ley­ball, but it’s like, I’m not sure who would want to go now, but you guys just tell me about UConn volleyball.

Nick: Yeah. If you don’t watch vol­ley­ball, you def­i­nite­ly should start watch­ing the Huskies, because right now the team is twelve and zero. head coach Ellen Her­man Kim­ball has, led an all around Huskies team to, the best start in pro­gram his­to­ry. Last year, the team went eight and 22. So it’s been not only a turn­around, but a dra­mat­ic turn­around at that. going from a team that was under 500 to a team that’s now unde­feat­ed. they’re unde­feat­ed in non con­fer­ence play. They also have sev­en home wins. and the team has just been receiv­ing efforts all around the ros­ter. that includes stand­out junior Emma Werk­meis­ter, who, is aver­ag­ing almost five points per set. That’s the best on her team in 25th in the coun­try. but in addi­tion to her, Doha Koot­lou, Audrey Rome, Tay­lor Pinell, McKen­na Brand, and Han­nah Tosca have all made name for them­selves. So it’s been a good year and a good start to the sea­son for the Huskies.

Matt: With sto­ry­line. With sto­ry­lines like this, with like a. I mean, twelve and, oh, over­all record is impres­sive in any feat. Do you believe that? With sports like vol­ley­ball and cross coun­try that have real­ly great sto­ry­lines that not many peo­ple know about, unless you’re actu­al­ly involved with those teams, do you think that it comes down to how well stu­dents know and how well these teams, I guess you could say, are, like, mar­ket­ed or pro­mot­ed to stu­dents, like, on cam­pus? Because I’ve been see­ing a lot of, let’s say, like Tik­Toks or, like, Insta­gram, like, reels about from dif­fer­ent UConn teams, like the UConn vol­ley­ball team, where they go up to stu­dents and ask them ques­tions, you know, to win, like a dunkin gift card. Do you think that, like, pro­mot­ing and mar­ket­ing are prob­a­bly need­ed much more for teams like the vol­ley­ball ones or the ones that aren’t, you know, more known in the UConn community?

Nick: I def­i­nite­ly think it helps. I per­son­al­ly work for UConn video ser­vices, so I also see what UConn mar­ket­ing does, and I know that they do, they put an effort for every sin­gle one of their teams. So it’s not like because the bas­ket­ball team is good, they get more mar­ket­ing efforts. It’s pret­ty even. I think the issue is that some sports are just kind of niche com­pared to oth­ers. Bas­ket­ball is always going to be a big draw because it has a wide, audi­ence and a wide, demo­graph­ic of peo­ple who are inter­est­ed. Vol­ley­ball is also very pop­u­lar. Obvi­ous­ly not as much. So, so it is kind of unfor­tu­nate that it, does­n’t get as many eyes as some of these oth­er sports. But what Yukon vol­ley­ball does have work­ing for them this year is that they opened their brand new Yukon vol­ley­ball cen­ter. that used to be the Frida’s ice forum on cam­pus. They took it, they ren­o­vat­ed it, got rid of the ice, and now it’s a brand new vol­ley­ball cen­ter. So, the Huskies have a new home for their vol­ley­ball team. If you guys have ever seen it. It’s very nice. Over these first few weeks of it being open, it had a sell­out crowd in its open­ing week­end. Few sell­out crowds ever since then. So even though vol­ley­ball may not be get­ting the same eyes as these oth­er sports, it is still very pop­u­lar. Peo­ple are still com­ing out. So it’s been very encour­ag­ing to see, and I think that has to do with not only the team’s good start, but also their, new home on campus.

Kwasi: And just, like, fur­ther the point that you lit­er­al­ly just made, it just kind of shows if you invest into any type of pro­gram, you’re going to start to see results, and that’s all that fans could ask for. That’s all that, like, stu­dents could ask for. It’s just like, if you start to, like, like, again, like, they just got a new vol­ley­ball cen­ter, it’s like that could not

00:10:00

Kwasi: nec­es­sar­i­ly attribute 100% to their great start to the sea­son, but it’s like there was like, some cor­re­la­tion there that, like, oh, like, once you show them that you care, once you show them like, hey, let’s make your facil­i­ties bet­ter, let’s make sure that this is bet­ter. It’s like, it goes to show that, like, that could help, like, improve the team in, like, ways that are beyond, like, play­er development.

Olivia: Yeah, it reminds me of the base­ball sta­di­um because they just recent­ly redid the RZA per­for­mance cen­ter, and it’s so nice. And the base­ball team’s been doing real­ly well. But going back to vol­ley­ball, some­thing I think that they do that’s real­ly cool is they have the ath­letes hand out, like, fly­ers on cam­pus, which I haven’t seen any oth­er sport do. And I feel like some­thing that’s so fun about col­lege is, like, you have such close access to the stu­dent ath­letes, and they are like, you know, like, some­times you see Paige Beck­ers walk­ing on cam­pus, and that’s so cool. And obvi­ous­ly, like, unfor­tu­nate­ly, the vol­ley­ball play­ers just aren’t as well known. But I think it is cool to, like, have a direct ath­lete be like, hey, come watch our game. And I think there’s a lot to be said about the stu­dent involve­ment that they have. So I think if they con­tin­ue their efforts like that and they’re prov­ing to us that they’re worth watch­ing, we should all con­sid­er going more, espe­cial­ly with the new sta­di­um. It’s so nice.

Nick: The vol­ley­ball play­ers are super nice. I have seen those videos of them hand­ing out dunkin gift cards. So, yeah, def­i­nite­ly check out a game. head to the new UConn vol­ley­ball cen­ter. The team has been play­ing great, like I said, not only Emma Werk­meis­ter, but the entire team, led by coach Ellen Her­man Kim­ball, has turned it around this year. They’ve been a fun team to watch.

UConn men’s soc­cer has start­ed out unde­feat­ed this season

Kwasi: All right, so let’s just move on to UConn men’s soc­cer. Now, I’ve only been to one sports game, like, my entire, like, four years on cam­pus. And the one sports game I went to was a uConn, men soc­cer game, I believe. I remem­ber them win­ning, like, an extra time, but gold­en goal rules. I know once it gets extra time. This year, they’ve start­ed out unde­feat­ed. Six wins, zero loss­es, two draws. Yukon men’s soc­cer is some­thing that I know per­son­al­ly. They’ve been devel­op­ing some­thing these past few years. They have dif­fer­ent play­ers going on to play in that MLS m. They’re get­ting draft­ed and stuff like that. They go on to play in Europe.

Nick: You’re absolute­ly right. it seems that the tra­jec­to­ry of UConn men’s soc­cer has been in the past. It was a dom­i­nant pro­gram. It was very high on nation­al rank­ings, one of the most com­pet­i­tive teams in the nation. And then it kind of drift­ed back and, was­n’t as com­pet­i­tive for a peri­od. But over these last cou­ple of years, the, team has been reform­ing, rebuild­ing. a lot of that has to do with head coach Chris Bon­di, who was in his third sea­son. when Bon­di inher­it­ed this team, it was a bit messy. he had a lot of play­ers who were with pre­vi­ous coach­ing reg­i­mens, so not exact­ly his team and his ros­ter, but he’s done an incred­i­ble job. Acquir­ing tal­ent is not dom­i­nat­ed by super­stars. It is very even up and down the ros­ter, and they’ve received con­tri­bu­tions from just about every­body. That includes, junior Scott Testore, who in his third year is aver­ag­ing over half an assist per game, and he has four total assists. Both of those are sec­ond the Big east and best on his team. Mean­while, play­ers like Sabri Hani and Eli Con­way have been extreme­ly good on the offen­sive side of the field. They both have two game win­ning goals, which is 15th in the coun­try. They also both have nine points and four goals, which is fourth and third in the Big east, respec­tive­ly. And, in goal, Max Kirk Fleet, he has an 824 save per­cent­age, which is 12th in the coun­try. So, con­tri­bu­tions from both the offen­sive and defen­sive side of the ball. play­ers like Guiller­mo Vachter have also real­ly con­tributed on the defen­sive side of the ball. So every­body on the team is putting.

Kwasi: Their best foot for­ward comes to UConn foot­ball. It’s like, that’s what UConn soc­cer has already, like, start­ing to progress into, like, that. They’ve already had their, like, five to ten year, like, turn­around of, like, okay, let’s, like, redo this. Let’s, like, devel­op new, like, that. We, like, start to con­vince play­ers, like, hey, like, UCon­n’s the place to be. And it’s like, I know I worked at, like, a sum­mer camp this past sum­mer, and I had the teacher, like, tell me, like, oh, like, they used to be, like, they used to go to UConn. They had, like, they were in charge of, like, devel­op­ment and, like, in charge of recruit­ing. And one of the fun­ni­est sto­ries that they used to tell me was that they would dri­ve maybe 70, 80 miles an hour from the air­port to cam­pus to try to be like, oh, it’s a short dri­ve from the air­port. You don’t have to wor­ry too much. But because there’s no cars on the high­ways, espe­cial­ly late at night, they would go 70, 80 miles an hour just to con­vince the stu­dents, hey, it’s not too far away from cam­pus. I don’t think they have to do that any­more now, because you don’t have to wor­ry all our sports teams are good. It does­n’t real­ly mat­ter where you are in the coun­try, as long as you have real­ly, real­ly good stand­ing. Across the entire year of col­lege sports, peo­ple will want to come to your cam­pus to play sports there so they don’t have to dri­ve and start speed­ing as fast as they can just to con­vince stu­dents to come to go play for the soc­cer team or go play for the foot­ball team.

Nick: From that, let’s segue into the oth­er soc­cer, team on cam­pus, the wom­en’s soc­cer team. They have a six one and two start to the sea­son, the sec­ond best over­all record in the Big east. So it’s been anoth­er hot start for anoth­er husky team. What do you guys think?

Kwasi: I’d say again, just, like, I’ve nev­er been to a UConn wom­en’s soc­cer game. So I def­i­nite­ly, def­i­nite­ly think that, like, if all these teams

00:15:00

Kwasi: are start­ing off real­ly hot, like, all stu­dents should be try­ing their best to, like, just, like, go and watch. Cause, like, espe­cial­ly in the moments, like, espe­cial­ly when the team’s per­form­ing real­ly well, you want to be there and be a part of it. You know? When it comes to UConn wom­en’s soc­cer, I know for a fact that they get, like, a lot of peo­ple going to, like, the WSL, like, the wom­en’s super league, like, both in Europe and in Amer­i­ca, and to be able to, like, I always think it’s real­ly cool just, like, see­ing, like, peo­ple that you go to school with be able to, like, go and, like, play pro­fes­sion­al­ly no mat­ter what the sport is. And I feel like peo­ple, like, some­times take that for grant­ed, that you get to say, like, oh, I went to school with so and so. Like, oh, that’s my, like, school. Like, I went to school there at the same time that they prob­a­bly did. It’s just, like, stuff like that I always find, like, real­ly inter­est­ing. So it’s just, like, to be able to go and watch a team that’s per­form­ing real­ly well right now. They’ve only lost one game so far out of their first nine. They real­ly, real­ly prob­a­bly have a lot of tal­ent that will go on to play pro­fes­sion­al­ly as well. So to be able to be a part of that and be able to go watch them before they start mak­ing their hun­dreds of thou­sands and mil­lions of dol­lars, I feel like that’s some­thing that you should go and wit­ness. Cause then you could tru­ly say, I was there before all this oth­er stuff happened.

Olivia: Yeah. Some­thing real­ly spe­cial that they do, too, is they give out a lot of, free tick­ets to youth girls soc­cer pro­grams. I’ve worked a cou­ple UConn games, and it’s real­ly nice to meet these fam­i­lies who come and bring their daugh­ters, and it’s just a good way for them to show, like, female ath­letes can do real­ly well. And like you said, a lot of them go on to play in the Super League. So it’s real­ly spe­cial, and that’s some­thing, I think, that UConn wom­en’s soc­cer does. That’s impor­tant to send out the right mes­sage. And I feel like that helps bring up their atten­dance, too.

Matt: I mean, I think some­thing, too, that I’m notic­ing from a lot of these dif­fer­ent sports that, you know, kind of Olivi­a’s men­tioned is that, like, the men’s soc­cer team, they give out free stuff, and for the wom­en’s soc­cer team, they give out tick­ets to youth soc­cer teams. I think each of these sports real­ly has some­thing spe­cial that they do to kind of draw an atten­dance, but also things like that kind of leave an impact on, the UConn com­mu­ni­ty as a whole, whether it be stu­dents or fam­i­lies of peo­ple that sup­port UConn. So def­i­nite­ly for, like, each of these sports teams, if they kind of just. If they keep stick­ing close to the vest and doing things like this, then I think it’ll real­ly go a long way, and it’ll con­tin­ue to prove that UConn has one of the best ath­let­ic pro­grams in the nation.

Nick: The UConn sport­ing expe­ri­ence is def­i­nite­ly a spe­cial one, and that’s made spe­cial when you have play­ers like Chioma Okafor and Kay­la Mahoney, who have both per­formed excep­tion­al­ly well for the wom­en’s soc­cer team. Okafor, on offense, is aver­ag­ing 1.78 points per game. That’s the best on the team. that’s also first in the Big East Con­fer­ence and 29th in the coun­try. And in the goal, Caitlin Mahoney is aver­ag­ing 0.77 goals against per game. That’s third in the Big east. So, again, kind of like the men’s soc­cer team, we’re see­ing con­tri­bu­tions on offense and also on defense, and what has amount­ed to an all around, very well suit­ed and strong UConn wom­en’s soc­cer team.

UConn wom­en’s cross coun­try senior Chloe Thomas recent­ly set new meet record

turn­ing our atten­tion to the UConn wom­en’s cross coun­try team, recent­ly, senior Chloe Thomas set a new meet record time of 19 min­utes and 51 sec­onds. that was at the Spike Chu invi­ta­tion­al at Penn State back on Sep­tem­ber 13. she ran real­ly fast, and because of that, she was named the biggest female ath­lete of the week, which is, no short award to be hand­ed. So a huge hon­or for Caitlin, or, I’m sor­ry, for Chloe Thomas. a huge hon­or for the UConn wom­en’s cross coun­try team and some­thing we love to see.

Kwasi: She just runs so fast.

Nick: It’s true. She does run fast.

Kwasi: Now, just like when you think of.

Kwasi: Sports like, you know, uConn bas­ket­ball, you could pick apart one or two play­ers. That kind of is a ful­crum for the team. But when you look at sports like field hock­ey, vol­ley­ball, soc­cer, there are always sev­er­al play­ers that serve as glue, play­ers that work pret­ty much cohe­sive­ly to pro­duce what we see as wins and suc­cess. So, like, again, these teams are start­ing off pret­ty hot, and a lot of it, is accred­it­ed to how well these teams have chem­istry and how well they just kind of work togeth­er at the end of the day, because at the end of the day, a lot of these sports are team sports.

Nick: So I think one trend that I’ve kind of noticed through­out this dis­cus­sion is that we’ve kind of talked about how some pro­grams are niche and may not get the same atten­tion or the same num­ber of eyes as oth­er sports, we’ve, also dis­cussed that because these pro­grams are so well round­ed, they’ve been able to suc­ceed. So, I think because these pro­grams maybe are not get­ting as much atten­tion, these ath­letes are still putting for­ward their best foot. They’re work­ing as a team. They’re not so wor­ried about star pow­er or, you know, name, image, like­ness, things like that. this is just a group of peo­ple who col­lec­tive­ly, like you said, Matt, have the goal of win­ning. I think it real­ly reflects the cul­ture that UConn instills in its ath­letes, and in its stu­dents. it’s a win­ning men­tal­i­ty, and I think it’s a tes­ta­ment to the school as a whole, for sure.

Olivia: And I feel like col­lege is the last lev­el of sports

00:20:00

Olivia: that you play as a team. Once you go pro­fes­sion­al, it’s kind of like you’re your own self agent and you play for your­self, espe­cial­ly bas­ket­ball, is the best exam­ple. You see Andre Jack­son, he plays for the UConn Huskies, and they’re play­ing as a team. They win a nation­al cham­pi­onship as a team. But when you go to the NBA, you’re play­ing for your­self, and every­one’s kind of in it for the mon­ey. So I think, like you said, nick, it’s a great tes­ta­ment to the cul­ture that we have at UConn that, it’s the last time you play for a com­mon cause and you play with each oth­er, and it’s not just about the indi­vid­ual athletes.

Kwasi: And just to, like, end off, like, the entire dis­cus­sion, we had, like, the one trend that I’ve been, like, kind of like, hit­ting on and, like, we’ve all talked about it as well. It’s just like, when you, like, there’s, like, the term, it’s just like, you got­ta, like, spend mon­ey to make mon­ey. You got­ta, like, take the time to invest into stuff in order to see results. And it’s just like, a lot of these pro­grams, like, the great starts that they’ve had or, like, the turn­arounds that we’re start­ing to see, it’s like they’ve all been, like, plant­i­ng the seeds for, like, a very long time. Like, maybe, like, the fruits of their labor are actu­al­ly start­ing to show where. Each of these teams may not have been so great in the past, but now they’re all show­ing up, and that could be because of a lot of things. You could attribute it to the bas­ket­ball team win­ning and ath­letes being like, oh, hey, the bas­ket­ball pro­gram is pret­ty good. I want to go play. I’m not a great bas­ket­ball play­er myself, but maybe I want to go play field hock­ey league. Maybe I want to go play vol­ley­ball there, stuff like that. So it’s being able to invest in dif­fer­ent types of things. Build­ing a new, like, hock­ey sta­di­um, build­ing a new vol­ley or ren­o­vat­ing a new vol­ley­ball are­na, being able to do all these things, to be able to, like, get ath­letes to be will­ing to come to your school, to be able to get, like, stu­dents to be will­ing to go to your games. Like, that’s going to turn the pro­gram around. And then even­tu­al­ly, like, stuff like that. Like, there’s soc­cer teams that are, like, bet­ter than ours, and they get, like, tv deals. They get to, like, have their games, like, stream on ESPN, and we’re not far away from that. So I feel like the biggest, the biggest thing that they could do now is just, like, con­tin­ue what they’re doing. Make sure that they don’t, like, just, like, give up. They don’t, like, set­tle for, like, what they have now. Make sure you just, like, keep on invest­ing, keep on show­ing that you care, because, like, that’s, like, all that, like, stu­dents and fans could care about. They want to see, like, effort. So then when the time comes to, like, like, when the teams, like, maybe, like, even­tu­al­ly, like, falls back down again, you still have, like, the fans that are there and be like, oh, we know that you guys can do this. We know that you guys have been great in the past. Like, let’s build it back up. And, like, rebuilds like, that hap­pen way faster than if nobody cares and if nobody goes up to games and then, like, the, the pro­gram is just like, oh, well, if nobody’s gonna come to the games. Like, why should we put in the effort? So I feel like they’re doing a real­ly good job right now, and I feel like, with time, even­tu­al­ly, like, they will see, like, things get even bet­ter than they are right now.

Nick: To wrap it up, in case you missed it today, we dis­cussed, the pro­gres­sion of UConn ath­let­ics. It’s been an incred­i­bly hot start to the fall. not for just one UConn ath­let­ic team, but for pret­ty much all of them. and for every­body in the husky hud­dle, I’m Nick. I was joined today by Olivia, qua­si, and Matt. Thank you for tun­ing in, and we’ll see you next time.

Kwasi: Shout out UConn jour­nal­ism for the pod­cast room.

Matt: Let’s go.

Nick: Thank you.

00:22:51